{"id":267210,"date":"2026-05-11T22:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T22:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267210\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T22:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T22:09:10","slug":"public-works-employee-rhachel-toombs-launches-democratic-campaign-for-jacksonville-mayor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/267210\/","title":{"rendered":"Public works employee Rhachel Toombs launches Democratic campaign for Jacksonville Mayor"},"content":{"rendered":"

Challengers continue to queue up to stop Jacksonville Mayor\u00a0Donna Deegan\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0re-election, with a third Democrat now entering the race.<\/p>\n

Rhachel Toombs<\/a>\u00a0is best known for what most would consider right-of-center political involvement, including with Americans for Prosperity<\/a> and the America\u2019s Future Foundation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And in another twist, Toombs works for the city\u2019s Public Works Department. She said the city Ethics office cleared her to run, which is legal because she\u2019s not an appointed official. She also believes she is the first active city employee to run for Mayor.<\/p>\n

Toombs, a resident of the Woodstock<\/a> area on Jacksonville\u2019s Westside who believes she is the first Jewish woman to run for Mayor, has worked for the city for a year and a half by her estimate. That is longer than she\u2019s been a Democrat. She joined the party last Fall.<\/p>\n

Despite Deegan, who gained her fame as a local newscaster, being backed by the Democratic establishment, Toombs believes she will find a receptive audience in the party.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI really feel that in the Democratic audience, you have so many people that really do embrace classic liberal values, and that we have a lot in common there, and we have a lot in common on our views on issues and desires on what we want to see happen in the country and in particular in Jacksonville,\u201d Toombs said Monday, during a break from her day job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have done work alongside liberals and even progressives in some cases, and there is overlap there. And I felt like it was just the right party to go with for this run and in Jacksonville in general.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deegan does not impress Toombs as a leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m championing the voice of the exhausted majority, regardless of their demographic and partisan affiliation. Deegan has been largely ineffective. I think she\u2019s maintained popularity because her handlers at least try to prevent her from getting into hot water over hot-button issues,\u201d Toombs said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut she doesn\u2019t deliver, she hasn\u2019t delivered on her promises, with all due respect to her efforts. She just hasn\u2019t delivered on her promises and her values don\u2019t really translate into workable government, especially when it comes to housing and affordability. She\u2019s done very little to make housing affordable and her capacity as mayor within the purview of the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Describing the Mayor as \u201cbusiness as usual,\u201d Toombs argues Deegan\u2019s \u201cpartisanship and her progressive values really come through\u201d at times, to her detriment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think progressivism has really failed this country and it\u2019s really failed the Democratic Party,\u201d the Democratic candidate said.<\/p>\n

Though the local and state Democratic Party has celebrated Deegan flipping a Mayor\u2019s Office that has been controlled by Republicans for most of the last three decades, Toombs is betting that voters aren\u2019t buying it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s going to determine this election is not going to be Democratic Party leadership or any party leadership. Maybe that\u2019s a bit na\u00efve, but it\u2019s the people that vote. And I believe that even Democratic voters, Republican voters, they\u2019re getting tired of the party leadership,\u201d Toombs said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been to numerous Republican Party meetings here locally. I\u2019ve been to a lot of Democratic Party meetings locally. And my feeling and experience is that voters of these parties, they don\u2019t trust party leadership. I don\u2019t know the head of the party here. But I don\u2019t even know if I\u2019d want them to endorse me. And I\u2019m sure they\u2019ve endorsed Deegan. I\u2019m sure they have. I mean, that\u2019s completely unsurprising to me and that\u2019s not who I\u2019m really concerned about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though she just filed for re-election, Deegan has been fundraising<\/a>. The aligned\u00a0Duval for All<\/a>\u00a0political committee has raised more than $1.62 million and has spent less than $177,000.<\/p>\n

Yet Toombs doesn\u2019t worry about the Mayor\u2019s money advantage.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be money that wins this. We\u2019ve seen national trends where, in some cases, the more money goes into campaigns, the less likely the candidate is to win. Now that\u2019s not to discount the need to fundraise. I\u2019m not afraid of fundraising. I\u2019ve done it for organizations in the past, with my nonprofit political experience. I have very, very, very good voter contact,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Toombs expects issues, such as her willingness to shut down the \u201cspecial interest slush fund\u201d of economic incentives for businesses, to help her make the case.<\/p>\n

She enters a field of candidates who have struggled to get traction. Of the nine challengers filed to Deegan, two have raised money, and the leading fundraiser among that group of challengers has roughly $6,000 cash on hand.<\/p>\n

The big-name potential challengers have yet to formalize their plans.<\/p>\n

The most likely serious Republican challenger at this point appears to be House Speaker Pro Tempore\u00a0Wyman Duggan<\/a>, who is wrapping up eight years in Tallahassee.<\/p>\n

Duggan, though prohibited from fundraising for much of the quarter due to a ban on legislators doing so during Session, still managed to raise more than $90,000 to his\u00a0Citizens For Building Florida\u2019s Future<\/a>\u00a0committee between the start of the year and March 31, which pushed the account near $1.2 million cash on hand. The lobby corps is on board, and he could count on hard-won statewide help.<\/p>\n

Republican City Councilmen\u00a0Rory Diamond<\/a> and\u00a0Ron Salem have yet to formally rule out a run. Both are term-limited this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Challengers continue to queue up to stop Jacksonville Mayor\u00a0Donna Deegan\u2019s\u00a0re-election, with a third Democrat now entering the race.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":267211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[34425,34426,114914,5890,116,118,117,114915],"class_list":["post-267210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-2027-jacksonville-elections","tag-2027-jacksonville-mayors-race","tag-americas-future-foundation","tag-donna-deegan","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-rhachel-toombs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=267210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/267210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=267210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=267210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=267210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}